Scott Swanson
Changes in the way the state dance-drill championships work could mean good things for Sweet Home this year as the Huskiettes get ready for the 2011 performance season.
Coach Kristin Ashcraft says that Oregon School Activities Association Board of Directors has taken advice from the Dance-Drill Coaches Association and made it easier to divide the field for the 4A championships into large- and small-team divisions.
Sweet Home, which normally fields about 15 dancers, in recent years has had to compete against much larger teams, which have an advantage in a visually oriented activity.
“We can compete when we’re not up against teams with 40 kids,” said Ashcraft, who is beginning her sixth year as coach.
The Huskiettes finished third in 2006, the last year they competed against teams their own size.
“If we can compete against smaller teams, if we don’t have to compete against large teams, we’ll do better at state,” she said.
The Huskies have 16 dancers this year, 11 of them returnees from last year’s squad, which finished ninth.
Ashcraft said that OSAA has also changed the rules governing the length of the program, reducing it from 4 to 6 minutes to 3 to 5.
“That helps because you can really focus and put all this good material in a short period of time instead of putting in fill-in stuff,” she said. “
Sweet Home’s program will feature “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance, a number that starts with a march-like opening before launching into the rest of the song.
Ashcraft said the costumes, which are hand-made by Lori Wilcox, “a seasoned dance mom” who has a second daughter on the team this year, will have a military tone and makeup will be “kind of scary.”
“The kids are really excited about it because it is really different,” she said. “There are a lot of riffs and visual effects. It’s coming along really well, which is really important if you have a song they all like. They have to be actors too and pull the audience in so it gets what you’re doing.”
She said that she has enjoyed broad support from parents this year in addition to Wilcox.
“Some years we have one or two moms who do everything but this year we have a whole group of them,” she said. “It makes it easier for me to coach.”
The team has five seniors, three juniors, and seven underclassmen, including five freshmen, who, Ashcraft said, “are really promising.
“(Sweet Home Junior High Dance Coach) Eohe (Howerton) did a good job with them.”
The team is captained by senior Michaella “Tree” Parks, with co-captains Kyle Lewis and Kaitlyn Long, also seniors. The other co-captain is Emily Conrad, a junior whom Ashcraft expects will be next year’s leader.
The rest of the team is made up of seniors Krystal Juza and Rachel Thomas, juniors Laura Mauer and Zecarri Syfert, sophomores Crystal Crites and Karrissa Rotenberger, and the freshmen: Cathy Cheshire, Randi Rockstead, Leticia Virgen, Taylor Webb and Andrea Wilcox.
The team’s season opens Saturday, Jan. 15, at Thurston, followed by competitions at Canby (Jan. 29), Stayton (Feb. 5), Molalla (Feb. 12), Sprague (Feb. 26) and the state competition March 18-20 at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum.
“I am really excited about this year,” Ashcraft said. “I know I always say that, but I think we have a cool routine. I think the audience and judges will like them.”